Jews erect shelter with deep spiritual meaning for holiday of Sukkot

Sep. 20, 2013

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Irwin Cohen helps to build the sukkah at Temple Israel. Wood beams act as the frame for the structure and lattices line the sides. People will gather to eat and socialize in the sukkah until the end of Sukkot Wednesday at sundown. / Christine Temple/News-Leader

‘Joy of the Torah’ begins Thursday

Keeping with the busy Jewish holiday season, Simchat Torah begins Thursday at sundown. In Hebrew, Simchat Torah means the “joy of the Torah.” Jewish congregations read the end of Biblical book of Deuteronomy and then immediately begin reading the book of Genesis. Rita Sherwin, rabbi of Temple Israel in Rogersville, said this ensures that Jews never stop reading the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible. To celebrate the holiday, adults and children from Temple Israel will carry the Torah scrolls around the synagogue singing and dancing. Simchat Torah teaches Jews that “the Torah never ends and that life is cyclical,” Sherwin said. “Jewish people love the Torah. We say it’s our most precious gift from God because it tells us how to live as God human beings, as good Jews.”

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This week Jews around the world raised sukkot — a shelter with a roof of branches and leaves — to celebrate the holiday of the same name that began Wednesday at sundown.

Though the building materials and sizes vary, each sukkah (singular of sukkot) holds the same significance.

“In the Torah, God says the reason you’re supposed to make (sukkot) is to remember when the Israelites were traveling to the Promised Land for 40 years,” said Rita Sherwin, rabbi of Temple Israel in Rogersville. “Those were the temporary huts that they built to live in.”

Sherwin said instructions for when and how to observe Sukkot are found in the Biblical books Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Known as “the season of our rejoicing,” Sukkot provides a stark contrast to the solemn holiday of Yom Kippur that occurred five days before. The holiday is a time to thank God and celebrate the fall harvest.

Locally, 20 people from Temple Israel gathered early Sunday morning to raise the sukkah. Wood beams created the frame and lattices lined the sides. Children from the synagogue threw branches on top as a roof.

“There’s a really beautiful teaching about the top,” Sherwin said. “It’s supposed to have enough foliage covering the sukkah that if you sit in it during the daytime you will be shaded from the sun, but it should be open enough that if you sit in the sukkah at night, you can look up and see the stars.”

Over the next five days, people from Temple Israel will spend as much time in the sukkah as they can, eating and socializing, Sherwin said.

New to Temple Israel, the Armour family helped build the sukkah. It was 7-year-old Ruegen Armour’s first time helping with this Jewish tradition. He said his favorite part of the sukkah was the roof, and when asked why it was important to build the structure, he simply replied, “For Jewish people.”

His mom, Odette Armour, added that the sukkah symbolizes tradition and family.

“Building the sukkah is the festival in the Jewish tradition a lot like Thanksgiving,” she said.

She moved to the area from Toronto two months ago and said, “Back home they used to put up the sukkah. It’s nice to know tradition carries everywhere.”

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Mara Cohen Ioannides, a Missouri State University English instructor who has written extensively about Judaism, said Sukkot is also an ancient agricultural holiday.

“(Sukkot) is what people lived in when they were harvesting,” she said. “Instead of traveling back and forth to their homes in town, they would go out into the field and build these booths and watch the harvest and make sure nobody stole it.”

Cohen Ioannides said sukkot are traditionally decorated with gourds, pumpkins or corn husks — the bounty of the harvest. This is typically a vegetarian time for Jews, she said, as most people try to eat fruits and vegetables in season.

“You eat your harvest and you’re thankful,” Cohen Ioannides said.

Children from Temple Israel will make decorations for the sukkah tomorrow during Sunday School. This year they are making pipe cleaner spiders. Sherwin said children also will learn the Hebrew blessings said during Sukkot.

During Sukkot services, Jews also use what are called the Four Species to “rejoice before the Lord.”

Jews take the etrog, a citrus fruit, in one hand and the lulav, consisting of one palm branch, two willow branches and three myrtle branches tied together, in the other hand. They wave the species in six directions to symbolize that God is everywhere.

Sherwin, who will retire her post in June, said she is savoring the holiday, as this is her last Sukkot as Temple Israel’s rabbi.

“Sukkot is about being thankful to God for the bounty of nature and the beauty of nature,” she said. “At the same time, we remember that like the sukkot, life is fleeting and temporary and the wind and rain can blow it down,” she said. “That’s the tension between the two messages.”